workshop:
Ever wonder what a POKEY sounds like? Or how the 2a03 differs from the SID?? What the hell is a VRC6? Well Inverse Phase will also be hosting our workshop this month and answering those questions for you! He explaining and demonstrating the signature sounds of different chipsets and clarifying all the mystery many seem to have about those sounds!

after-party:
If that isn’t enough A_Rival for you, He will also be blasting tracks at our after-party!

The real-time rendering of game engines opens up possibilities for audiovisual performance. Game art duo Foci + Loci will present an examination of their work process in Little Big Planet 2 providing an opportunity for participants to collectively build and perform in a simulated environment.

This month’s workshop features Marjorie Becker, also known as Chiptography! She’ll be giving a presentation about her years experience documenting chip music performances as the Blip Festival’s unofficial photographer. She’ll also have copies of her first photography book, Blip Festival | New York City | Five Years available for pre-order!

Photographer Ben Mason recaps the past 8statics at Studio34. We’ll be getting a sneak preview of his amazing (and HUGE) photo archive. We think Ben’s style is totally awesome, and we want to thank him for his dedication to our event!

Live Gameboy Performance Techniques with Paul Weinstein AKA Chipocrite Ever wonder exactly what a Game Boy musician is doing onstage besides pushing Start, dancing like a fool and pumping his or her fist dramatically? Philly’s own Chipocrite will take you through some live chip performance techniques, from manipulating sounds in pre-tracked songs, to incorporating “real” instruments, to using synching technology for an expanded experience. At the end of the presentation, members of the audience will have a chance to explore LSDJ’s Live Mode to create a unique, on-the-spot Game Boy remix.

Sam Cusmano of Electricity for Progresswill be leading a workshop about circuitbending.Electricity For Progress is an interactive educational electronics initiative. Through the presentation of modified children’s toys and handmade electronics to an audience for direct interaction, the audience is encouraged to explore and question the machines in their world. The modification of basic circuitry allows graphing of the properties of electronic circuits. Understand how your tools work!

Before 8static this month we’re doing something a bit different. We know you all are very opinionated people, so this month we’re giving you a chance to share some of those opinions. In a town hall style meeting led by Jenn de la Vega (of The Tank, and Pulsewave) and the Philly chip crew, we’ll take some time to discuss the issues relevant to 8static, chip music and the chip scene that are important to you.

Armed with nothing more than an iPhone 4, Emily K. Feder started filming chip shows in October 2010. Less than a year later, she’s posted more than 1,000 videos and attracted almost 64,000 viewers on her YouTube channel, the Chip Music Chronicle. Emily is dedicated to capturing and presenting a true-to-life visual and audio representation of the live chip experience — “to document chip music performances with complete sets, tracks and good quality audio and video that properly captures the mood of these performances; to do justice to the hard work these people put into the scene and provide a chronicle of that dedication; and to provide all performers with an equal voice and eliminate the gate-keeping element.” Join her before this month’s 8static to learn more about her mission, see some highlights from her massive library and get an inside look at what goes into shooting guerilla-style chip vids.

Jake Beadenkopf will be giving a talk and demonstration about the basics of Quartz Composer as a live visual tool. Jake Beadenkopf performs live visuals under the name Chromacle. In this talk he will explore the basic functionality of Quartz Composer, as well as a couple of different ways various people make use of it.

Music theory for chip musicians by Animal StyleThis talk will attempt to cover general music theory concepts and how they relate to creating chip music or video game tunes. A quick overview of intervals, scales, chords, forms, rhythms, and harmony will be reviewed, and following this, there will be a discussion about how these concepts relate to making music in the electronic medium as opposed to using standard instruments. This workshop is an attempt to look past the technical details of trackers and sequencers in order to get to the heart and inner workings of our notes, chords and rhythms i.e. how they interact to create what we call chip music.

Wil Lindsay a.k.a. VBLANK will talk about his YM_MINI project: A MIDI controllable free-standing YM2149 chip synth. The YM or the chip from which it was derived (GI’s AY-3-8910) also created the music and audio in the Intellivision, Vectrex, some MSX systems, Sinclair ZX and Spectrum home computers, and many arcade machines. Wil will demo and discuss various nuances of the chip, and what they mean for musicians.

Kickstarting MinecraftCatch a screening of the first twenty minutes of 2 Player Productions’ feature length Minecraft documentary. Director Paul Owens and Publicist Jenn de la Vega will be on hand for a Q&A and to discuss how they were able to make the project a reality by raising $150,000 through Kickstarter.

Copyright, Creative Commons, and Your Music by Bit Shifter Making your music (or other digital art) available online is a great way to get seen and heard. It’s also a great way to get your work appropriated and used in ways you may not have foreseen or intended. Understanding the fundamental principles behind the idea of copyright is an important first step in protecting your work — not just from malicious intent, but also from simple misunderstandings or incorrect assumptions on the part of those who might enjoy your work enough to want to use it in their own way. This presentation is intended to shed light on the basic concepts behind intellectual property — owning what you make, and defining how it can (and can’t) be used. In this discussion we’ll touch on what copyright is, what Creative Commons licenses are, how they differ, and how they can be used together to protect your work, while still allowing it to be enjoyed by others.

Batsly Adams will teach you the basics of the Arduino platform for art and music applications. He’ll give you instructions on how to setup the Arduino as a communications for PC/MIDI instruments, as well as live demonstrations of chip music applications such as MIDI playback on the NES, a hardware NSF player and visualization control.

LSDJ music workshop by Animal Style. It’s been over a year since the last LSDJ workshop, so he’ll quickly review basics. However, the main focus will be more advanced techniques like: single channel echo, phasing, some WAV channel tricks, advanced arpeggios, and more! Wanna learn to make kickass Game Boy music? If so, don’t miss it!

Come out early this month to learn about making your own PCB’s (printed circuit boards). Andrew AKA Batsly Adams will be presenting on the structure and fabrication techniques of PCB’s. He’ll give a live demo of acid etching which can be used to produce circuit boards or art with any metal material. He’ll also briefly introduce EAGLE, an open source PCB design tool. Finally, he’ll take you through his process of one of his recent projects, from initial idea to production.

Before the show, we’ll be seeing some work from the demoscene with Stephen Whittam, a.k.a. “Inspired Chaos.” Demoscene is a community built upon groups of programmers, musicians, and artists who create stylish audio/visual ‘demos’ to flaunt their skills and make their mark at one of many ‘demoparties’ that occur across the globe each year. IC will show how far things have come since the days when information moved at the speed of a copied floppy disk.

Game Boy modding workshop by nonfiniteThis is our anniversary show, so its time for an all night after party @ Pi Lam featuring Anamanaguchi, minusbaby DJ Billy W. from Robotique, with visuals by Enso! Best of all, its all ages and FREE for 8static attendees!

Ready>Run opening reception from 5-8pm at Klein Art Gallery, 3600 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19104Ready>Run is an exhibition focusing on the “chiptunes” or chip music scene. Chiptunes are music and accompanying visual imagery created from sound formats and graphics capabilities of early computers or video game consoles, most commonly Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo NES, and Commodore 64. The Ready>Run exhibition will showcase the complex array of visual art and music that this subculture is currently producing. Ready>Run will feature artists and musicians on both a local and international level.

Pro Audio Workshop “Know Your Sound: Making friends with your Mixer”Now that you’re finished writing your E.P. (Bit Shifter is going to love it!), it’s time to play some shows and record that lovely music for all the world to hear. But getting the best quality sound out of your Gameboy/Commodore 64/Circuit-Bent Pikachu depends on a lot of factors, and figuring out how all those glorious lo-fi sounds fit together in a mix can be a tricky task.Fear not, audio engineer Gabe Liberti of 2 Player Productions will be your guide as you explore the hidden depths of your esoteric audio equipment. By understanding proper gain staging and seeing the joys of retaining dynamics in your mixes, you will suddenly find yourself in a place free of unwanted harmonic distortion and wimpy sounding WAV kick tracks.

PIGGY TRACKER, compose or dj with a joystick: In this workshop you will learn how Starpause (Jordan Gray) makes music and DJs with his Sony PSP running PIGGY TRACKER. Along the way will be some insights to cracker/demo/compo culture. Finally, there will be a hands on workshop where you learn how to install and configure PIGGY TRACKER on your device of choice. IN/OSX/NIX laptops are all fair game (especially if you have a USB joypad) as well as cracked PSP or the linux GP2X handheld. Or if you prefer to just sit back and sw0p some 5iles that’s cool too! Ambitious buggers can get a head start with the tutorial videos at http://littlegptracker.com/docs.php

Free screening of “Reformat the Planet 1.5″ by 2 player productions.”Reformat the Planet 1.5″ explores the last two years of chipmusic in New York, exposing fans of the original Reformat the Planet documentary to the intensity that was Blip Festival 2007 and 2008. This new documentary piece shines a spotlight on the ever-crowding Pulsewaves, the growth of the chip music scene in Philadelphia, and the arrival of the next generation of chip musicians to the 8bit scene. Runtime: 40 minutes

“Electronic Purism – Back to the Basics – 8 bit is Decadent: 1 bit Music in Early Computers”, Dr. Rolf Lakaemper, an early computer game pioneer, currently computer science professor at Temple University, will demonstrate how music and different sounds can be created by ‘organized crackle’ – just switching on and off a speaker in a defined manner using a single bit of a computer. Come and check if a single bit can please your ears. Workshop starts at 7:00pm.